Some Arkansas voters need to fix DMV software bug to be able to vote

The Department of Finance and Administration said that “out of an abundance of caution” it would be sending letters to anyone who changed their address while the software was experiencing problems.

About 49,000 Arkansas voters who updated their registration information with the Department of Motor Vehicles earlier this year may be registered at the wrong address due to a software error.

The Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration said it will send letters to anyone who may have been affected, though not everyone who changed their address during the period when the software issues occurred will experience problems with registration.

In Arkansas, voters who change their address at the DMV can update their voter registration information at the same time. From January through late March, software errors in the system used to transmit that information to county officials led to some people’s registrations not being updated correctly.

“We will contact any voter who has provided an address change during this time, giving them time to verify their address is correct before the November election,” Scott Hardin, a spokesman for the Department of Finance and Administration, said in an emailed statement Friday. “The decision to communicate broadly is an abundance of caution.”

He emphasized that this only applies to people who changed their address at the DMV. Those who originally registered there or at other state offices should be registered correctly, he said.

Jaime Land, a representative for the Secretary of State’s office, said Friday that voters who changed their address within the same county can correct it at the polling place when they vote, but voters whose address changed to another county must correct it by the Friday before Election Day, Nov. 5, or risk being ineligible to vote.

Her advice to voters is to “be proactive about it.” Voter registration is “relatively easy,” she said, and can be done at places like county clerk’s offices and public libraries.

Hardin said the Department of Finance and Administration expects to send the letters next week.

Arkansas voters can check their registration status on the Secretary of State’s website.